Anxiety in People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilties

Overview

Anxiety is one of the leading mental health concerns among children, youth, and adults. It can have a huge impact on activities of daily living and effect how the individual, family, and caregiver interact with one another. It can leave children and youth struggling with school work and isolated from their peers. For adults it can leave them feeling lonely, cause stress at work, and seriously damage their relationships. For those living with intellectual / developmental disabilities (ID/DD), this can be no less true.

As discussed in our introduction, people living with ID/DD are at risk for mental health concerns. So we need to be on the lookout for mental health issues when a person presents with characteristics that are in keeping with anxiety disorders in the typical population.

This module will focus on the importance of identifying anxiety in the ID/DD population.